Turtle Side Note: Get ready folks for the disgusting edge that is my writing, yee haw.

“we... gotta talk.

The child sighed, standing in the doorway, looking down at the skeleton blankly, “Just say you're sorry and get it over with.”

Sans froze for a moment, feeling a pull on his soul. A pull that made him say something he really didn't want to, “no, kid, we gotta actually talk.”

Sans wanted to kick himself in the shin for saying that. He didn't want to talk, he wanted to get the child out of his face as soon as possible.

Sans grumbled to himself annoyed, watching the child’s expression turn from bored to surprised, “You want to…” Frisk felt a smile pull on their face but Sans could only see the strange inhuman gleam in their eyes. Frisk then continued, still keeping their overly sweet smile on their face, “We can talk in my room.”

The child walked into the house all the way, letting the door shut behind them. They headed up the stairs, turning to see Sans still standing at the bottom, “Are you going to come?”

Sans looked at them blankly, his usual comedic grin still stretched across his face, “heh, i’ll catch up in a minute, kiddo”

Frisk knew he was going to teleport as soon as they turned their back, so they did. A moment later, they heard a snap, turned back around, seeing the skeleton gone. They shrugged it off, going up the rest of the stairs before turning to their bedroom, opening the door, only to find the skeleton already there with Flowey, who was asleep in their window sill.

Frisk let out a breath, hopping onto their bed next to the skeleton. The bed creaked and groaned under their weight, and Sans didn't even bother to look in their direction.

“Go ahead, talk, Sans.” the child chirped, their voice sickenly kind. Sickenly fake.

Sans stared ahead, glancing at Flowey’s sleeping form, only one question buzzing in his mind, “why?”

“Why what?” Frisk asked, raising a brow.

Sans’ skull snapped towards the child, his eye-sockets narrowing but his smile remaining, “don't play dumb with me, kid, you know what i’m talking about.”

Frisk smirked, “You're asking why I resetted?”

Sans stared the so called human in the eye, seeing an empty husk look back at him, “i’m asking why you thought it was right. why you think it doesn't matter anymore.”

“Sans…” Frisk bowed their head, looking almost guilty.

The child froze.

Sans stared at them, his features refusing to soften, but his curiosity growing inside him.

He leaned towards the child, his soul pulsing slowly within his ribcage. He reached a hand towards them, only to find himself jumping back a moment later as their head snapped up, a grin splitting their features, “Sans! You're so ignorant!”

“what-?” Sans’ eye-sockets fluttered, blinking in a confusion he couldn't pin down.

“You don't understand me at all, do you?” The child's grin looked almost painful to hold, a soft laugh emitting from deep within them.

Sans felt his face wrinkle in disgust, “ ‘course i don't, kid. why the hell would i be askin’ if I did?” his eye-lights wavered, as if he was preparing for an attack that wasn't coming.

The child leaned in, whispering an inch from the skeleton’s face, “I… can't… feel… anything.” Their eyes looked hysteric.

Sans stared at them blankly, his eye-lights dimming the more the child spoke.

“I only feel when I hurt you… I feel so… happy! It feels so good. I feel alive!” they grabbed Sans’ shoulders, but the skeleton refused to flinch, “That's why I did it. I could finally feel without any permanent consequences. Just a simple thought and I'd go back… and I'd be able to do it again… and again… until I was satisfied.”

They pulled they skeleton closer to them, their voice filling with a darkness Sans had only ever witnessed in the golden hall, but his stubbornness refused to let him react, his darkened eyes just looking emptily into the child’s.

“I thought you were like me too, Sans. At first I thought you were just like me. You just seemed so fake… and you were. You were fake, everything you did was fake, everything you do is fake. Your smile, your laugh, none of it's real.” They laughed in a way that would shake a soul of the strongest monster. That would send a soul quivering in fear and panic, “I thought you felt nothing… then… I killed him… I killed them all! Then I saw the real you! I've never felt so alive in my life! It was brilliant, your emotions were so raw, so pure, so real, I'll never understand those feelings, but I've never seen someone so… vivid before!”

Sans could feel his soul cowering, screaming at him to run out, grab his brother, and never come near the child again. But he was frozen, whether out of fear or stubbornness, something deep within him was paralyzing.

“Even right now, you seem so alive… I wish I felt that… I wish I didn't have to just blend in. But, when I came to the underground, when I first killed that froggit, I felt something inside me, I felt human.” They smiled bittersweetly, not seeming to understand how revolting what they were saying was. They seemed to have no concept of right and wrong. They were empty.

The child stopped talking, but still held an iron grip on Sans, staring into his empty eyes as his eye-lights slowly began to refill the voids, enlarging more than usual. His brows pushed together, his permanent smile looking more and more like a grimace, “you fucking psychopath-"

“Sociopath.” Frisk corrected, their face now blank.

Sans froze, taken aback, before shaking it off, ripping away from the child’s arms and leaping off the bed, “how do ya not see that what you did was wrong?!”

The child just shrugged, seeming indifferent.

Sans’ face looked bizarre, panicked, his eye-lights flicked all over the child, “i…” he snarled, stopping himself from finishing his sentence, but the child read his mind.

“You want to tell them, don't you?” They smirked, “But you can't, they'll only think you're insane, not me. I'm safe, you're on thin ice. Funny how things work, right… comedian?”

Sans could have sworn he saw a glimmer of red in the human’s eyes. He stood there, and stared at them, trying to piece together everything they had told them. His soul pounded against his bone, but he knew they were right. They were right...

Sans gulped, sucking in a deep breath of air before his stiff posture loosened to something more familiar. The skeleton held his composure, his eye-lights flicking to the floor before going back to the human, “you're right… i’m sorry…”

Frisk’s face scrunched, “Sorry? For what?”

His eye-lights vanished.

“i'm sorry i made the promise to protect you…"

Sans squinted at the child, his grin being stretched to a painfully uncomfortable point.

"...frisk.”

His grin strained, breaking for a moment before he vanished from the child’s room.

Frisk smiled.

“Touché, comedian…touché.”

…

Sans fell out of his teleportation, slamming into his bedroom floor, he darted to his door, locking it frantically before sliding down it, curling up into himself.

Ba-dum

Ba-dum

Ba-dum

His soul was racing.

He felt like he'd finally lost it.

He gripped his skull in panic as the realization that he was completely under the child’s control set in.

He knew he was under their hand in the underground, but he still had his social life under control, he was still free to act as he wanted, now he felt caged like an animal. One wrong move and the child could easily make everyone think he'd gone mad.

He had to go back to being Mr. Nice Guy. He'd have to hide every emotion he felt around the child. He couldn't let them feel the need to kill again, he couldn't let them make the others think he's the lunatic either.

He had to stay quiet, not only for his safety, but for the others' safety as well.